Are golliwogs offensive? Discuss.
IMHO, no. They're DOLLS! I am aware that the playthings resemble the blackface buffoonery, and I know why blackface is offensive. But these things are just toys, and now the pharmacy at Westmead Hospital has been criticised for stocking these 'offensive' objects. I've mentioned in previous posts my much loved golliwog, that I named 'Golly'. I was a little tacker and still in the process of developing the imagination that would have me writing books, which is why my toy had such a prosaic name. Golly actually didn't have a black face. He had a seriously sick looking face. The dog mauled him, and my mother mended him so he ended up looking completely different (shades of the old gaudy miniseries 'Return to Eden' starring James Reyne - who remembers that?). My mother mended him with one of my brothers grey school socks, the kind with the ribbed stitching, and sewed Golly's eyes and mouth back on. Golly also had a rather odd wardrobe; my older sister decided to cut up some of my nappies (the old terry towelling ones) to make clothing for him. With his grey face and white robes, poor Golly looked more like a corpse in a shroud.
But if the Society Of The Perpetually Outraged have their say, children won't know what it's like to have a golliwog soon. Not that playing with a golliwog feels much different to playing with any other rag doll, and do you know why? Because it's CLOTH, just like any other freaking rag doll!!! Why do people have to carry on, moan, groan, whinge, whine, pule and bleat all the time? Let's remove golliwogs! Let's remove Chinese dolls, they promote racism, too! Let's remove all dolls that don't have golden tresses, pink cheeks, and blue eyes! And when that's done, let's all bitch that there is not enough ethnic diversity in the toy aisles, shall we?
Proud Mum Moment #103: This occurred last night, whilst watching one of the multitudinous repeats of 'Big Bang'. I am at that stage where I could quite happily never watch that freaking show again. I occasionally enjoy it, but the repeats are getting beyond a joke, and if it's not on television, my oldest drags out the DVDs. My kids adore this show. But anyway, back to my Proud Mum Moment. This was the episode - and I'm sure you've seen it because it's been repeated ad nauseum and even traders at the border of Bhutan have probably seen it - where Wolowitz, Hofstadter, and Raj are in Vegas, and Hofstadter and Raj decide to set up the morose Wolowitz with a hooker. My 11yo was watching, and taking in the dialogue and attitudes, you know, the 'should we'/'shouldn't we' as they planned the transaction. He asked, 'Mum, that lady's a prostitute, right?'
'Yes,' was my reply.
Watching the show, he realised there was some legal grey area to what the characters are planning, and he asked was being a prostitute against the law. I said in some parts of the US, where the show is set, yes. I explained it wasn't actually against the law per se here in NSW. He wanted to know why people had a problem, and I said it was a bit of a morality issue for some people.
Genuinely puzzled, my son said, 'But why? It's her CHOICE, isn't it?'
How my heart sang and swelled. It was one of those moments where after all the shouting and wondering whether the kids listen to you, and whether you're a complete dickwad of a parent, you realise you've done something right: you're raising a kid who is broadminded and non-judgemental. I just beamed at him. Then he said, 'But she might have herpes. One in every four women has herpes.' I know not from whence he obtained those statistics; I'm just delighted he is not judging a woman (albeit a television character) about a decision over her body.
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